We watched Alex Hormozi sit down with Tony Robbins in an interview recently and, quite frankly, appreciated the vulnerability that Alex shared with his viewers.

Here's a guy who built a $100 million empire before he turned 32. Scaled over 4,500 gyms. Sold Gym Launch for $46 million...and he’s still going. The kind of success most people spend their entire lives chasing. And when he had the opportunity to sit down with none other than THE Tony Robbins, he had the choice to talk to him about business or life…and he chose life.

Because despite having everything, he feels apathetic.

We knew Alex before he was "Alex Hormozi." When we say he came from nothing, we mean nothing. So watching someone go from literally sleeping on a gym floor to this level of achievement, and then watching him admit he doesn't know how to be happy... that's the conversation that matters.

This isn't about Alex. It's about all of us.

Here are some of our brief takeaways…if you want to hear more, be sure to tune into our podcast!

Alex asked Tony about how he sees the "dichotomy between duty and enjoyment," and Tony went straight for the word "duty."

He said words are contagious. Like yawns. You pick them up from the people around you, and you inherit the emotions attached to them without even realizing it. The words you use literally change your biochemistry. They create what Tony calls a "certain emotional home" - certain emotions you keep returning to because your language takes you there. And your emotions determine how you experience the world.

Think about that. "Duty" versus "opportunity." Same action, completely different internal experience. One is push motivation (willpower, grinding, "I have to”). The other is pull - something you're made for, something that lights you up.

Alex has been operating from push his entire life. He works every hour he's awake. The first testimonials from helping people felt good for a while, but after the hundredth, the thousandth, it didn't matter anymore. The magic was gone. And it's happening in everything he does now.

When you build success on push motivation, you eventually run out of magic.

When Alex was in his twenties, he was obsessed with positive psychology. He had a trunk full of self-help books and read everything. At one point he realized that, even after all this reading, his life hadn’t changed. His subjective wellbeing stayed exactly the same. Happiness felt hopeless and elusive to him. So he came up with a mantra: "F*ck happiness."

He replaced the idea of happiness with being useful and he built his entire life around it. That's why "duty" feels meaningful to him. He thought, "I might not enjoy this whole ride, but everyone else can get something out of it."

He said he's "okay" with it. Tony called him out immediately: "You're okay with it, but you're torn by it."

Then Tony asked him: "Would you accept something in your business that is mediocre compared to what you're capable of?"

When you train yourself that "pain equals success" and "f*ck happiness," you've literally hypnotized yourself into missing fulfillment. You weren't feeling fulfilled in the first place, so you told yourself it doesn't matter. And now you've programmed yourself to never access it.

When Tony kept telling Alex to get out of his head and into his heart, Alex said, "I like the language, but I don't know what that means."

Tony's response: We're not one thing. We're multiple versions depending on what we're doing. Society makes us pretend we're one thing because it's easier to manage. But there are many parts of us.

He helped Alex identify two identities: "Analytical Alex"- intellectual, brilliant, high achiever, in his head, suffering. And "Anabolic Alex" - knows how to smile, relax, be fun. You can shift your energy just like that when you name the part of you that you want to come out.

Identity is everything. The strongest force in a human being is we need to stay consistent with how we identify ourselves. If your identity says "I always find the way to victory," you will. If your identity is "I am at the effect of things," that's what you'll experience.

Tony asked: When did you decide what kind of person you were? Five years ago? Ten? Twenty? Would you use a phone from ten years ago? So why are you using the same identity?

The brain reduces everything, compares everything. The heart magnifies everything, takes the little things and makes them bigger. Which one are you letting lead?

There is so much more we could cover, but we’ll end on the idea of rich versus poor. It’s not about money. People who are rich are those who get to live feeling fully alive. In order to be “rich” you need your energy shifted. You need to get in an environment where you feel like you’re on fire.

We light ourselves up by contributing to something greater than ourselves. Not by checking boxes. Not by hitting numbers. Not even by helping people if we aren’t connected to the impact.

There’s a version of of you that is fully alive. And there’s a version that’s managing, grinding, pushing through. By Tony’s definition, which one are you living as?

We broke this down way deeper on the podcast. If this hit you, you'll want to hear the full conversation - we get into the charity check Alex wrote that made him feel nothing, Tony's billion meal challenge.. and more!

Watch the full Tony Robbins and Alex Hormozi interview here: https://youtu.be/xz-ymFOhBAE?si=w52MudfdX_lJqmws

The question isn't whether you've hypnotized yourself. The question is: what spell are you under?